Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Klaus Fruchtnis will speak at the Nurturing the Art of Change Conference at HEC Alumni Premises in Paris

A new decade is upon us with organisations, communities, and populations facing social, environmental and economic complexities. We each live in our local version of a VUCA environment surrounded by crises on a global scale. In this world, the rational paradigms, the linear approaches, the conventional methods are both limited and limiting. They offer a black and white lens to multicolored truths dismissing that the world of business and change is also founded on feelings, narratives, motivations, ambitions, dreams and passions.

It is high time for us to allow holistic and inclusive approaches to impact our shifting realities. We, therefore, turn to the heart of the human experience; to the arts and to the artists within, as a means for exploring new ways for “seeing more and seeing differently”. In this conference, we critically and reflectively take on the integrative lens of art for value to emerge.

Our conference will be an atelier to engage our senses, feelings and thoughts in such a way as to experience, understand and communicate the world differently. It offers a space where the two begrudging bedfellows: the rational and the emotional, turn to acknowledge each other.

Together with our guest speakers who come from the inter-world of academia, practice and the arts; we will cultivate the answers to these questions and several more:

• Is art a paradigm, a process or a tool for change?
• What do the ‘artistic lens’, ‘the artistic process’, ‘the artists’ experience’ and the ‘artistic brain’’ offer in understanding and changing organisations and societies?
• Is there a space for a new world where art, business and change come together?
• How will this affect the practices of leadership and change agency?
• What are the enabling conditions for this shift to take place?
• What are the capacities to be built and the new habits to acquire?
• As a change agent, how can I nurture the ‘art of change’ within me?

In the face of the chaos that looms; having tried and tested, failed and succeeded at the linear and at the rational; let us now come together to nurture the art of change, and see what form it grows…

Klaus Fruchtnis will talk about the elements of participatory and collaborative art practices as an alternative solution for social and citizen engagement. And, how social change involves more than intervening in a situation whose rules are pre-established, and tangible solutions are expected.